dumpling party

I guess the wisdom of having already turned 30 is that you don't have to get drunk at your own party and you can organise something more sedate, like making dumplings. Getting a good party going is like getting a fire started, you need to give it enough fuel at the start, fan it so that it gets just enough oxygen, so I was too busy getting soup ready and serving snacks (and drinking beer) to take any more photos. Take my word for it, it was a good party, maybe a bit too much work to do it all again (and a big thank you to all the friends who came early to help out, contributed extra stools and chairs, and without which the party would have been impossible).

salty bread and salty tears

You know the feeling when you go back to a favourite food place but it is no longer there? Or perhaps it is there but the cook has changed and it tastes different...
a much more eloquent account of that here.

There must be an elegant way to say this in French, like how esprit de l'escalier (French for spirit of the escalator) refers to a witty comeback that only occurs to you when its too late.

September is a time for birthdays and this weekend is particularly busy - have a picnic in the afternoon and then late night drinks for another friend, plus a third friend is celebrating his at a guy club late late late into the night (don't think I will be going for that one).

So in the same order, happy birthday to Lachlan, Catherine and Jeff. May the coming year be better than before (and definitely better than my shitty run of luck last week). And a happy belated to Shravan, who I dobbed that it was his birthday yesterday and he had to do 25 rolls during training, the poor chap. Ah well, it was funny.

Mum is visiting, so I haven't been cooking but I whipped out this trusty tofu dish when I volunteered to cook for one night last week.

Ma po tofu
(It means pocked marked tofu dish, not sure why. This is a vegetarian adaptation of the one in Fuchsia Dunlop's book)

Chopped garlic 2-3 cloves
sliced cloud ear fungus (soaked)
chopped carrot
chopped caulifower
chopped spring onion
about half a block of tofu, cubes
2 tablespoons of sesame oil

Fry in wok. Add a couple of spoons of stock or water till the veggies are cooked.

For the sauce
1 teaspoon of salted black beans, crushed
3 tablespoons of chili bean sauce (you can get this in a bottle at most asian shops)
1 tablespoon of black chinese vinegar (this is the equivalent of chinese balsamic vinegar, it is more mellow than rice vinegar)
soy sauce to taste if it is not salty enough

Add sauce to stir fry, toss for a minute or so and it should be done.

sundays are for soup

In the orange corner, we have day-old sweet potato, parsnip and rosemary soup. I wasn't going to make a creamy soup until I smelt one of my neighbours making potato soup... I couldn't resist.

In the green corner is the beginnings of another soup. I've been craving a spicy korean hotpot soup, which actually comes in a tetrapack, but the shop that stocks it is a million miles away (okay, boxhill, but it is out of my way). So I am improvising with hatcho miso and some chilli paste. Not sure what the results will be.

You can never have too much soup in winter (even though the flowers say spring is finally here).

sweet potato, parsnip and rosemary soup
Qualities are for 2 - 3 serves.

A 5 inch length of sweet potato, diameter is about 8cm. You can also use regular potato, about 3. Chopped.
4inch length of parsnip
2 sprigs of rosemary
half an onion

Fry everything lightly in 2 tbsp olive oil, add about 2 bowls of water when it is sizzling. Let it cook over a low flame for at least 30min. Blend. Salt to taste. Because I am trying to go dairy free at the moment (except for yoghurt), I haven't added any cream or milk but you could.

little green giants

Last year I grew cabbages, this year, looking at the price of veges, I decided to grow broccoli. Organic broc goes for $8 to $10 per kg. It took forever to grow, at least 3 months from seedings, and they are still pretty tiny. Then again, I am growing them in an overcrowded recycled styrofoam fruit box, so I guess I can't expect giants. I'll just eaten the last of my store-bought broccoli, so I'll probably harvest a few of my own in a week, so that the rest have a bit more room to grow.

Another big welcome to another pickle sister, the person who gave me the idea for the title of this blog, Mon. Mon is an amazing and inspiring cook and will be posting soon!

Recycling

I bought gluten free soy flakes, apricot and almond flavour, but what it really tasted like was cardboard. Maybe the manufacturers anticipated this, as they had 3 recipes on the box. Thankfully the cookie recipie is much better than the flakes.

Soyflake cookies ( I suppose you can use any type of cereal that you don't want to eat)

3 tbs butter, melted

2 tbs honey, 2 tbs maple syrup , 2 tbs brown sugar but I used 7 tbs brown sugar

1 egg, lightly whisked

Add sugar/syrup to melted honey. Stir in egg. Then add

2 cups flakes

1 cup flour

Any additional almond/fruit/chocolate

Make into cookie shape. They don’t expand by much. Bake 20 min or golden brown in oven preheated to 160C. It says you can make 20 cookies. The first time I tried it my cookies were bite sized so I had more than 20, this time I got 15 bigger cookies. You'll figure it out.

cooking for two

What does love taste like?

Like bacon apparently.

Joe is very fond of bacon, and even more so of the double smoked pancetta I get from my regular butcher down the road. This Serbian couple set up shop 45 years ago and the smoked stuff is to die for. Fried till crisy or just to flavour a soup, both work.

We have also eaten many pizzas, souvlakis, desserts (my killer chocolate and pear muffin), hot chocolates. Joe reckons nothing is better than the Lambs outlet in Northcote for souvlakis, and as for pizzas, the $4 dinner special at the Lucky Coq can't be beat.

For a treat, he made his signature buttered prawns, only this time he added dried coconut and fried it in oil, instead of butter.

He was meant to fly off on Sunday night, the plane had technical difficulties - they had to reboot the flight computer and it still didn't work. So thank you malaysian airlines, for all the wrong reasons, for giving us an extra 60 hours together.